Falsification Challenge

[Imperialism Inc.]

This is an interesting question from a book I have been reading. It is exploring the notion of God defined as follows:

A person without a body (i.e. a spirit), present everywhere, the creator and sustainer of the universe, able to do everything (i.e. omnipotent), knowing all things (i.e. omniscient), perfectly good, a source of moral obligation, immutable, eternal, a necessary being, holy, and worthy of worship.

The question explored, as you might guess, is about being perfectly good. The "problem of evil" existing in the world has been discussed here many times. Basically the question is , how can God be perfectly good (or all loving) when he lets things happen like , for example, young children to be abducted, raped and murdered. The answer usually comes in something resembling this other quote from the book I spoke of, attributed to a Joseph Butler:

Upon supposition that God exercises a moral government over the world, the analogy of this natural government must be a scheme quite beyond our comprehension; and this affords a general answer to all objections against the justice and goodness of it.

In other words, "God works in mysterious ways". The morals and goodness of god are just simply beyond our comprehension. As the author points out, such an answer does 2 things. First it makes it indefeasible. I.e. it cannot be disproved. But, it also makes it insupportable. For, if the scheme is "beyond our comprehension", then we cannot look at individual occurrences in the real world and decide if they support such a Godly scheme or not.

In more plain language I would just say that it basically redefines the word "good" to be something unrecognizable by human beings. We have some concept of what the word good means but , since the events in the world do not always meet that definition, the theist who defines God as above has to redefine the word good to mean something else. Essentially the definition of good becomes: "the way the world actually is".

The author calls this problem of an indefeasible, insupportable perfectly good God the "Falsification Challenge" and states it as this:

Someone tells us that God loves us as a father loves his children. We are reassured. But then something awful happens. Some qualification is made... We are reassured again. But perhaps we ask: what is this assurance of God's (appropriately qualified) love worth, what is this apparent guarantee really a guarantee against? Just what would have to happen not merely to tempt but also (logically and rightly) to entitle us to say "God does not love us" or even "God does not exists"?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. What is good?

You could argue it is good to tell the truth. But was it bad for the priest during WWII to tell the Nazis at his door that he wasn't hiding any Jews while the Jewish family was cowering in his basement?

Looking at things from a God's eye view rather than a limited one is talked about in this old Sufi story:

Moses was walking with Kadir,an angel, to learn the ways of God. They came upon an old ramshackle house, the walls barely standing up. Kadir caused a wind to come up, and blow down one of the walls.

"Why did you do that?" Moses demanded. "Now that poor family has only rubble to live in!"

"You are here to observe, not question," Kadir reminded him.

They went on, and saw a loving couple with a newborn baby. Kadir caused a branch to fall down on the infant's cradle, crushing the child.

"Why did you do that?" Moses was distraut. "That poor family--"

"You are here to observe, not question," Kadir reminded him once again.

Finally, they came to the sea. Just at the horizon was a ship laden with people. Kadir commanded a storm come up, and the waves drove the vessel into the rocks; all hands were lost.

"Why did you--" Moses began.

Kadir sighed. "You were told to observe, not question," he said. "God sees the broader view of things. For example, that wall I knocked down - it revealed a secret passage to a bag of gold that had been hidden by an elder of the family generations ago. The people will find it and not be destititute. The infant who died had within him a closed heart; had he lived, he would have grown up and murdered not only his parents, but thousands more. And that ship that was wrecked was filled with pirates, bent on sacking and destroying a city. If you had had patience, and simply observed, you would have understood that God's view of things is different than yours."


Finally-I have met more than one friend on the mystical path who has had something happen to them that most would consider "bad" if not catestrophic. In each case, however, the event was a catalyst for spiritual growth.

What is good? What is bad? I know that I do not always know.

[Imperialism Inc.]

2. Ok. That is very similar to Butler's answer but still the

question remains. With that definition of good is there anything that could happen that would cause us to say, "Ah, God is NOT good after all!". Or, are you basically conceding that we cannot answer the question? And, cannot ever know if the statement (God is perfectly good) is true?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. God is not good. God is not evil

Is a molecule good? Is an atom evil? Or are these attributes we ascribe to them when, say, a molecule is part of a cancer cute or the atom is split to create an atomic explosion? I would hazard that most would say no, that the "goodness" and "badness" of the situation are attributes given by mankind.

In my belief system, which is basically a mystical one, God is everything. Every molecule, every atom, every thought, every belief, every idea. Why do we perceive goodness and evil? Perhaps it is part of the separation that is required so that God knows God.

[Imperialism Inc.]

4. Hmm. Ok. I can accept that. But,

that isn't the definition of God that was being addressed. I think we basically agree. That a "perfectly good" God is a meaningless proposition, given a human based definition of goodness.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

5. Free Will.

and the God I worship is inner and not outer, so that is how He (she, it) knows all about me.

Kind of like the Borg. All individual parts of the continuum. So He doesn't really have to be all knowing, except all knowing of me.

But now we're about to slip into Philosophy 101 and my eyes glaze over.

[Imperialism Inc.]

6. Well, free will is another way out but then you give up

omnipotent. Because, if the claim is that God can't make the world a certain way then he isn't all powerful.

If he can but choses not to then the question is still there. How can we ever know that the statement is true. Like the challenge states, what event could happen that would make one say "Ah ha. He isn't good after all" And, if there is no such event then what does the guarantee of perfect goodness / perfect love really mean? Anything?

I don't see how this is philosophy 101. Maybe the free will thing is Christian theology 101 but it still doesn't answer the challenge.

Is there anything that could happen that would cause us to reject the statement "God is perfectly good"? And, if not, what good is it to us? does it really mean anything? Other than that we are re-defining "good" to simply mean "the way things actually are"?